The present invention is directed to server systems and methods thereof.
Since the invention of the first generation of microcomputers in the 1970s, architectures and housing of computer system have been continually evolving. Computer systems that are used as servers are typically mounted on racks. In contrast, personal computers, or mini computers, are typically mounted within computer cases.
For server application, a certain level of modularity is needed, where additional computing resources can be added, removed, replaced, and/or modified. For example, the VMEbus architecture in the 1980s defined a computer interface which included implementation of a board-level computer installed in a chassis backplane with multiple slots for pluggable boards to provide I/O, memory, or additional computing. The PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG) developed a chassis/blade structure for the then emerging Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus. Common among these chassis based computers was the fact that the entire chassis was a single system.
The term “blade server” has a card included the processor, memory, I/O and non-volatile program storage. The blade server configuration allowed manufacturers to package a complete server, with its operating system and applications, on a single card/board/blade. These blades could then operate independently within a common chassis, doing the work of multiple separate server boxes more efficiently. In addition to the most obvious benefit of this packaging (less space-consumption), additional efficiency benefits have become clear in power, cooling, management, and networking due to the pooling or sharing of common infrastructure to supports the entire chassis, rather than providing each of these on a per server box basis.
Unfortunately, conventional blade system have been inadequate for various reasons, as explained below. It is desirable to have new and improved blade systems and methods thereof.